Socialism as it is

by William English Walling

Liebknecht saw what was happening years ago, and, in one of the most widely circulated pamphlets the Socialists have ever published (No Compromise), issued an impressive warning to the movement:—

"The enemy who comes to us with an open visor we face with a smile; to set our feet upon his neck is mere play for us. The stupidly brutal acts of violence of police politicians, the outrages of anti-Socialist laws, penitentiary bills—these only arouse feelings of pitying contempt; the enemy, however, that reaches out the hand to us for a political alliance, and intrudes himself upon us as a friend and a brother,—him and him alone have we to fear.

"Our fortress can withstand every assault—it cannot be stormed nor taken from us by siege—it can only fall when we ourselves open the doors to the enemy and take him into our ranks as a fellow comrade."

"We shall almost never go right," says Liebknecht, "if we do what our enemies applaud." And we find, as a matter of fact, that the enemies of Socialism never fail to applaud any tendency of the party to compromise those acting principles that have brought it to the point it has now reached. For Liebknecht shows that the power which now causes a Socialist alliance to be sought after in some countries even by Socialism's most bitter enemies would never have arisen had the party not clung closely to its guiding principle, the policy of "no compromise."

There is no difficulty in showing, from the public life and opinion of our day, how widespread is this spirit of political compromise or opportunism; nor in proving that it enters into the conduct of many Socialists. Such an opposition to the effective application of broad and far-sighted plans to practical politics is especially common, for historical reasons, in Great Britain and the United States. In this country it has been especially marked in Milwaukee from the earliest days of the Socialist movement there. In 1893 the Milwaukee Vorwaerts announced that "if you demand too much at one time you are likely not to get anything," and that "nothing more ought to be demanded but what is attainable at a given time and under given circumstances."[99] It will be noticed that this is a clear expression of a principle of action diametrically opposite to that adopted by the international movement as stated by Bebel and Liebknecht. Socialists are chiefly distinguished from the other parties by the fact that they concentrate their attention on demands beyond "what is attainable at a given time and under given circumstances." They might attempt to distinguish themselves by claiming that they stand for the ultimate goal of Socialism, though their immediate program is the same as that of other parties, but any politician can do that—as has been shown recently by the action of Briand, Millerand, Ferri, and other former Socialists in France and Italy—and the day seems near when hosts of politicians will follow their example.

Any static or dogmatic definition of Socialism, like any purely idealistic formulation, no matter how revolutionary or accurate it may be, necessarily invites purely opportunist methods. A widely accepted static definition declares that Socialism is "the collective ownership of the means of production and distribution under democratic management." As an ultimate ideal or a theory of social evolution, this is accepted also by many collectivist opponents of Socialism, and may soon be accepted generally. The chief possibility for a difference of opinion among most practical persons, whether Socialists or not, must come from the questions: How soon? By what means?

Evidently such a social revolution is to be achieved only by stages. What are these stages? Many are tempted to give the easy answer, "More and more collectivism and more and more democracy." But progress in political democracy, if it came first, might be accompanied by an artificial revival of small-scale capitalism, and a new majority made up largely of contented farmer capitalists might put Socialism farther off than it is to-day. Similarly, if installments of collectivism came first, they might lead us in the direction of the Prussia of to-day. And finally, even a combination of democracy and collectivism, up to a certain point, might produce a majority composed in part of small capitalists and favored government employees. Collectivist democracy completed or far advanced would insure the coming of Socialism. But a policy that merely gave us more collectivism plus more democracy, might carry us equally well either towards Socialism or in the opposite direction. The ultimate goal of present society does not give us a ready-made plan of action by a mathematical process of dividing its attainment into so many mechanical stages.

A very similar political shibboleth, often used by Party Socialists, is "Let the nation own the trusts." Let us assume that the constitution of this country were made as democratic as that of Australia or Switzerland, and the suffrage made absolutely universal (as to adults). Let us assume, moreover, that the "trusts," including railways, public service corporations, banks, mines, oil, and lumber interests, the steel-making and meat-packing industries, and the few other important businesses where monopolies are established, were owned and operated by governments of this character. Taken together with the social and labor reforms that would accompany such a régime, this would be "State Socialism," but it would not necessarily constitute even a step towards Socialism—and this for two reasons.

The industries mentioned employ probably less than a third of the population, and, even if we add other government employments, the total would be little more than a third. The majority of the community would still be divided among the owners or employees of the competitive manufacturing establishments, stores, farms, etc.,—and the professional classes. With most of these the struggle of Capital and Labor would continue and, since they are in a majority, would be carried over into the field of government, setting the higher paid against the more poorly paid employees, as in the Prussia of to-day.

And, secondly, even if we supposed that a considerable part or all of the government employees received what they felt to be, on the whole, a fair treatment from the government, and if these, together with shopkeepers, farm owners, or lessees, and satisfied professional and salaried men, made up a majority, we would still be as far as ever from a social, economic, or industrial democracy. What we would have would be a class society, based on a purely political democracy, and economically, on a partly private (or individualist) and partly public (or collectivist) capitalism.